


One Thousand Li(v)es

by PermetsTu



Category: Supernatural, Wayward Sisters (TV)
Genre: If You Squint - Freeform, Supernatural AU - Freeform, but other than that, it's really not all that different, it's the same old Supernatural that we know and love, kumbayaaaa my lorrd, slight AU, some things might not line up exactly with canon, the angels have free reign, this is my brainchild, we're all children of jesus, welcome to bible study
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-14
Updated: 2018-04-24
Packaged: 2019-04-22 16:03:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14312274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PermetsTu/pseuds/PermetsTu
Summary: Castiel's acting weird again. After practically begging the Winchesters to take a case, he starts being really vague. There's something he's not telling the Winchesters and they're not having it. When weird things start happening all around them, they demand answers, but what they get isn't what they were expecting. Far from it, in fact.Everything seems to revolve around an unconscious that everyone except for Sam and Dean seem to know. Angels, demons, shifters, the odd hunter-- everyone's after this girl, but no one seems to know more than a fraction of the real reason why,





	1. What They Saw in the Lookingglass

She woke up with a start, bolting up in her bed, sweaty clothes sticking to her back, heavy breaths forcing their way in and out of her lungs. After the initial panic had subsided and her breathing began to slow down, she pulled her legs into her chest and buried her head between her knees. Tears welled in her eyes and her ribs ached with the effort of not releasing the sobs that desperately clawed their way up her throat.

Body trembling and ears ringing from the deafening silence, she looked over at the clock on her night stand.

12:01.

As usual.

In the sixteen years that she had been living, twelve of them had entailed being plagued by the same nightmare every night. For the past six months, though, she had been having them at the exact same time, always waking up to find that it was one minute past midnight. And she could never remember the dream once she was awake.

Feeling drained but knowing she would be unable to go back to sleep, she pushed the covers off of her and swung her legs over the side of the bed. A chill rose through her as her bare feet reached the hardwood floor. Her arms rose above her head and she twisted her spine, sighing as a series of grotesque pops of her joints permeated the thick silence. Slightly more awake now, she grabbed a zip-up hoodie off of the floor and made her way across the bathroom. As quietly as she could she opened her window and removed the screen.

A soft smile graced her features as a warm breeze floated through the window, tousling her hair as it filled her lungs. She deftly pulled herself through the open window to sit on the roof.

The shingles scraped against the bottoms of her calloused feet, but the view of the stars above her blinded her to any pain she might’ve felt. She stared up at the distant balls of flame in wonder, wishing she could see what they looked like up close.

As she stared upwards, she became more and more lost in thought. So much so, that she failed to notice the shadowy figure on the grass below her.

The figure strode silently across the perfectly manicured lawn. He didn’t even bother to sneak-- he was far too confident for that. Things had a tendency to go his way and so he was unworried.

The blade in his hand glinted in the moonlight. He brought it only as extra insurance; he didn’t expect the girl to fight back (at least not enough to concern him), but he wanted to be prepared for the unexpected. Were he to muck this up his entire plan would be ruined.

He soon discovered that it was easy enough to sneak up on her and even easier to knock her out.

With a wicked smirk he grabbed the girl’s wrist and left as quickly as he’d come.

 

* * *

 

The Winchesters were sleeping soundly for the first time in weeks. They had taken a few days between cases after a particularly vengeful ancient god decided to kill off perfectly healthy children. Their free time was spent sleeping, tending to their wounds, and doing fixing the Impala in the motel parking lot, and doing whatever the hell they wanted.

Little did they know that their peaceful few days would be cut short.

They awoke to the flutter of wings and a familiar gravelly voice telling them to wake up.

“Cas? What the hell-” Dean rubbed his eyes and slowly sat up. “Come on, man, we were sleeping!”

“I found a case,” Cas said simply.

Sam glanced over to his brother for a moment, wondering if he too was feeling that something was strange. Turning his attention back to the angel he said, “Since when do you find us cases?”

Castiel shifted his weight. He didn’t seem to know how to answer without arousing their suspicion. One hand reached into his pocket and retrieved a folded up page of newspaper, handing it to the youngest brother.

Sam took the paper, looking once more to his brother as he unfolded it. As he read his brow furrowed. “So a girl shows up in a creek in Tennessee,” annoyance crept into his voice, “how exactly does that require us? This seems like a problem for the police to handle.”

“Something’s not right. I can sense it,” Cas said.

“You can _sense_ it?” Dean asked incredulously. “Cas, if you think you’re gonna interrupt one of the few vacations we get with our job you’re gonna need a whole lot more than vague suspicion and spidey senses.” His eyes swirled with annoyance as he leaned back against the headboard of the bed and folded his arms.

Something in Castiel’s eyes shifted. They seemed to shine a darker shade of blue with a hint of-- was that desperation? “Please,” he begged. “I would not bother you if it were an insignificant matter.”

A long silence stretched between the three men as the brothers held one of their silent conversations. Pointed glances flew back and forth across the room, sharp sighs sliced through the air, and Castiel’s brow furrowed more and more with each new new movement from either of them.

At long last both brothers turned their attention back to the angel.

“What do you need us to do?”

In no time at all, Dean found himself parking the Impala at an active crime scene two hours West of their motel. A brief (and somewhat vague) explanation from Cas had convinced them to don their FBI gear and make the drive to a spot along Lookingglass Creek in Oregon. The bridge crossing over it was completely blocked by yellow tape and police cars, but nevertheless the two men and the angel climbed out of the Impala as if they belonged there.

The three of them walked toward the tape with purpose, their strides long and unwavering. Dean, who was leading the pack, acted surprised and just a tad outraged when a sheriff put a hand to the hunter’s chest to stop him from crossing the police tape. Pulling his best irritated face, Dean whipped his fake badge from his pocket, introducing himself as Agent Burnham.

“Sorry,” the Sheriff said slowly, seeming somewhat sceptical as his eyes drifted over to the sleek and shiny black car that certainly wasn’t standard issue for the Bureau, “but what does the Bureau want with a small-town Jane Doe case?” It was clear by his folded arms and upturned nose that he was seeing right through them.

Now even more irritated, Dean mimicked the sheriff’s posture. “Listen, buddy, we have reason to believe that this could be a part of a string of cases nationwide. You want to question it then call my director. Now, if you don’t mind?” He gestured in frustration to the yellow tape, demanding more than asking to be let through.

“Yeah. Sure,” the sheriff griped. “I’d like your director’s phone number, though, if you don’t mind.”

Without another word, Dean fished a business card emblazoned with one of Bobby’s fake phone numbers out of his breast pocket and shoved it in the direction of the real law enforcement officer.

The three men fell into step once more as they ducked under the yellow tape. Together they made their way down the grassy embankment towards the creek.

Between the muddy ground and the swollen banks and fast-moving flow of the creek, the Winchesters were lead to believe that it had recently rained. A lot. They picked their way closer to the congregation of cops at the very edge of the creekbed, a few of them even standing in it.

“What’ve we got, boys?” Dean asked as they drew nearer. This time he was prepared, already flashing his badge and prompting Sam and Cas to do the same.

Questioning eyes flashed between the cops, seeming to wonder what the Sheriff had: what did the FBI want with this case? Slowly but surely they began to divulge details of the case.

A girl had been found in the water around daybreak by an eager fisherman. Miraculously, she was still alive. From what they could tell, she was almost completely uninjured, save for a few minor scrapes and some bruises. Her breathing was normal and even, her pupils dilated in response to light --by all accounts she seemed to be in perfect health. There was no evidence that she had jumped, or of any way she could have gotten into the creek. The catch was that nobody could seem to get her out of the creek. That was where the cops began to have trouble explaining further.

“Well, where is she?” Sam questioned. His brow was furrowed and there was a certain glint in his eye that only seemed to appear when he had determined that something fell into the Winchesters’ area of expertise. His brow furrowed even further as he watched one of the cops point out towards the middle of the creek.

“We tried to get her out but she won’t budge. She’s not caught on anything, she’s just… floating there,” one officer managed. “It’s like she’s asleep and just _floating there,”_ his voice was strained with confusion.

The hunters were equally confused. They stared out into the rushing current of the swollen creek where the girl lay perfectly still in the middle of it all. What might have been the weirdest part was that the floating debris from the storm they assumed caused the rising of the water level seemed to swerve out of the way of hitting her.

“And, uh,” the officer spoke up again, drawing the attention of the Winchesters once more, “you might think we’re crazy but…” The man was wringing his hands and chewing on his lip, as if he were wondering whether to actually go through with finishing his sentence.

Dean raised an eyebrow after a few beats of silence. Impatience ran through his veins, coupled with the curiosity and apprehension that came with the unusual circumstances of this case.

“Well, whenever anyone goes to touch her they get this weird mark. Looks like a burn.”

As the officer said this, he and a few of his comrades rolled their right sleeves up to their elbows. The skin of their arms was marred just below the crease of their inner elbows. The marks were a fresh red, shaped vaguely like a triangle, about the size of a half dollar.

Upon seeing the mark, Castiel stepped forward with wide eyes. He grasped one of the men’s arms to inspect it more closely. His eyes studied every millimeter of the mark before he suddenly picked his head up once more to look out at the girl. Without warning he shoved past the cops and past his friends. There was absolutely no hesitation in his expression or in his gait as he began to wade into the creek.

“Whoa, Cas!” Dean called in surprise, following him to the edge of the creekbed. When his friend ignored him, he called after him a few more times. With no response from Cas, he too began to make his way into the creek, grumbling the whole time.

Sam still stood in front of the cops, watching his brother and the angel. When Dean entered the water, Sam’s shoulders slumped and his face morphed from professional to bitchy. He wasn’t about to be the only one of them left on land, unable to immediately be there to help them, would they need it. Letting out a huff and shaking his head a little, the youngest Winchester trudged toward the creek and unenthusiastically waded in after them. He cringed at the feeling of the cold water and mud squelching through his socks and shoes, but he persisted onwards.

When he caught up to the other two, Cas was simply staring intently down at the girl, while Dean was staring at Cas in bewilderment. He watched as his brother debated between wanting to help what seemed to be a harmless teenage girl in an odd situation and following everything being a hunter had taught him and being extra cautionary with this girl, if that’s what she really was.

Before Dean could come to a decision, Cas grabbed the girl’s shoulders. Her eyes flickered open but seemed to stare past him as he pulled her upright. As he did this, the current suddenly seemed to affect her again.

Her lower body, still submerged in water, began to succumb to the rush of water heading downstream. Had Cas not kept a firm grip on her shoulders, she surely would have been pulled away and drowned.

“How in the hell did you do that?” one of the cops called from where they still stood on the bank. The water carried the clear confusion in his voice to the Winchesters and the angel, but none of them answered.

In a blink, Cas had placed the girl over his shoulder. Without so much as a glance towards the Winchesters, he started in the direction he had come.

The brothers chased after him once more, running as well as on could over mossy rocks under water and fighting the pull of the current.

When the three of them were at last back on land, only then did Castiel acknowledge the boys again. “We need to get back to the bunker,” he had said before disappearing. The two very confused hunters were left to answer the numerous questions of the even more confused cops Cas had just left behind.


	2. The Articles

 

When the Winchesters arrived back at the bunker, they were more than a little pissed off.

Dean stormed through the door, followed closely by Sam. “Cas!” Dean shouted, the irritation in his voice bouncing off the walls and echoing down the corridors. “What the hell, man?”

The brothers found him in the library, sitting at one of the tables. He sat very still, seemingly lost deep in thought as he stared pensively at his hands. “Sam, Dean,” he greeted, still focused on his hands. “I understand the circumstances of this case have been unusual. I appreciate your cooperation.”

Dean raised a brow. “Unusual? Man, we have no idea what’s going on!” He took two steps forward as he continued, “We follow you with no real clue as to why, and then you just freaking disappeared on us!”

“Yeah, do you know how hard it was to explain to those cops why and how you had just popped out of existence like that?”

“I apologize for my lack of explanation. As I said before, the situation is dire. I couldn’t risk her being out in the open for longer than absolutely necessary.” Castiel’s monotone voice did nothing but agitate the Winchesters further.

“And that’s another thing!” Sam flailed his hands, his voice rising in volume. “Who exactly is she? Why is she so important?”

Cas finally looked up. “I… don’t think I’m best suited to answer that question.” He fidgeted for a moment, before rising to his feet. “I do, however, know someone who could. I will need to speak to him and inform him of the situation.”

“No-- Cas, we need answers!” Sam protested.

“When I return you will be provided with them,” he assured.

The boys went to argue more, but by the time they had opened their mouths again Cas had already flown off.

“Dammit!” Dean yelled, slamming a hand on the table.

The Winchesters stood in the library for a few minutes more, unsure of what to do. They desperately wanted answers, but their only source of information had just disappeared. The only hope they had was to pore through the lore in the library, but with nothing to go off of they had nowhere to begin. They could try calling Bobby but they weren’t sure he’d know either.

It wasn’t long after they had lost all hope of figuring out what the next logical step would be that Cas reappeared. This time, he had a guest in tow. A very agitated guest that the boys knew all too well.

Gabriel looked around frantically, both processing where his brother had taken him and looking for the reason he had come here in the first place. His whiskey eyes held a hopeful gleam accompanied by a worried undertone. His hands were nonchalantly tucked into the pockets of his jacket, but his rigid posture clearly let on that he was feeling anything but relaxed.

When Castiel had first found him he had initially thought that the Winchesters needed him for something. He had spent a considerable amount of time playing tricks on his little brother. So much time that, when Castiel had come Gabriel felt like kicking himself for not listening sooner. If he had he would have learned that one of the people he held dearest, one who had been missing for millenia, who everyone had assumed was dead, had just been found. Found  _ alive _ , no less.

He hadn’t waited for Castiel to finish explaining before he demanded to be taken to her immediately.

Castiel, seeing the mad look in the archangel’s eyes, had done so without protest. He hoped to avoid his brother causing a scene, but it seemed that his efforts would be in vain.

Gabriel’s eyes widened as he recognized the bookshelves and table around him. Then his eyes landed on the two hunters to his left and his eyes narrowed. He whirled on Castiel, distracted briefly from his original intent in favor of chewing out his brother. “You brought her  _ here? _ ” he glared. “Of all the places you cou--  _ Here?  _ You left her with these two dunces?”

“It’s the safest place I know of,” Castiel defended.

“‘Safest place’ my ass! Even with all the protection, these two attract trouble like honey attracts bears.” Gabriel took several steps forward until he was close enough to poke his finger into Cas’ chest. “The second one of us takes a step outside they could be on our asses to get to her.”

It wasn’t clear who “they” were, but nobody bothered to voice that thought out loud.

“How’d he get in?” Dean boomed, choosing to ignore the insult.

“How could you have gotten past the wardings?”

Neither angel answered, leaving the brothers all top cognizant of the fact that their being left in the dark was becoming a common theme.

Instead, Gabriel all but shouted, “Where is she!?”

“Gabriel, please calm down. It is not in anyone’s best interest for you to see her in the emotional state you’re in.” The trench-coated angel reached forward to place a strong grip on his brother’s shoulders. He hoped against hope that Gabriel would see reason.

Ripping the hands off of his shoulders, the archangel shoved past the Winchesters. He walked in what was more or less a fairly large circle, scanning the room as if he expected her to be among the stacks of books or under one of the tables.

“Gabriel, I ask that you calm yourself for the sake of--”

A hard, cold glare shut Castiel up.

With a resigned sigh and a defeated look in his eyes, Castiel motioned for his brother and the Winchesters to follow him.

All of them desperate for answers, they did so without further question. Four sets of footsteps echoed down the halls of the bunkers. They trailed after the angel until they reached one of the spare bedrooms that was quite out of the way of everything else in the bunker.

“She’s in here,” Castiel said as he turned to face the brothers and his own brother. “I implore you to think rationally and not to--”

He was cut off by Gabriel shoving him aside and bursting through the door.

Castiel sighed, but he didn’t look all that surprised. “Do that,” he dejectedly finished his sentence. Figuring that there was no longer a point to hiding the girl away, he then stood aside so the Winchesters could enter the room as well before he himself followed them inside.

They were greeted with the sight of the girl from the creek laying on the bed. Her body rested on top of the white comforter. Her skin was eerily pale, a striking contrast to the black zip-up hoodie and dark sweatpants emblazoned with “COLORGUARD” down one leg. Her clothes and hair were caked and stiffened with dried mud and other creek grit, but her face, hands, and feet were pristine, something that could only be Castiel’s doing.  She laid stock still, her arms folded across her middle and her legs crossed at the ankles. The only indication that she was still alive was the shallow rise and fall of her chest.

Gabriel was knelt at the side of the bed, peering at her face. “Vivienne?” he whispered. He stared at her for a few moments longer before slowly looking up to meet Castiel’s gaze with his own wide-eyed, teary eyes. “You’re sure this is her?”

The blue-eyed angel nodded solemnly.

All eyes were on the girl as Sam spoke up once more. “So, who is she?”

It took a few beats for Gabriel to react to the question. Once he finally stood and cleared his throat, he seemed to have regained his composure. “She’s our little sister.” His voice sounded just slightly strained with emotion, but he pretended not to notice.

Dean raised a brow. “She’s an angel?”

“Archangel, actually,” Gabriel corrected. “The littlest archangel.” He directed a find smile towards her for a few moments before turning back to the conversation. “Father’s surprised us all by giving her to us after we had thought he was done with archangels. We all thought we had lost her millennia ago,” his eyes glossed over with memory, “but here she is.”

“So…” Sam shifted his weight. “What you’re telling me is that we’re currently harboring an archangel? I hate to say it but I’m with Gabriel on this one; if she’s here, we’re gonna have all sorts of angels, demons, and who knows what else on our tails.” He looked at the angels for confirmation.

Gabriel opened his mouth as if he were about to agree, but shut it again at the last moment. His brow furrowed as he looked to Cas. With a quirk of his brow he seemed to ask a silent question, to which Castiel shook his head. Looking back at his sister, his severe expression lightened up a little as he smiled to himself. “Clever girl…” he mumbled, his hair shifting out of place as he shook his head in bemusement.

“What?” Dean asked, perturbed by the trickster’s familiar chuckle. Every time he heard that sound it usually wound up that he was about to be majorly screwed.

“No one knows she’s here but us,” Gabe explained. “I don’t know how she did it but she’s dropped completely off the grid. Even if there’s something or someone out there who didn’t think she had died way back when, they wouldn’t be able to find her. Which brings us to the next question.” He paused to turn to Cas again before asking, “How in the hell did  _ you _ find her?”

“I don’t have all the answers to that question. What I do know is that somebody wanted me to find her. Several articles from several newspapers around the world that had been printed at various times in the last century were left in my pocket. Using that information I was able to predict when and where she would next show up.” He reached into his trench coat to pull out the articles in question.

Several were aged and yellowish-brown, soft around the edges with how many times they had been crumpled and flattened again. One was still a crisp white, though no less wrinkled. Most of the headlines indicated a horrible tragedy;  _ ‘Baby Found Drowned in Local River,’ ‘College Student Murdered,’ ‘Mother of Two Found Dead, Coroner says Natural Causes,’ ‘Priest’s Wife Falls Off Horse, Bitten by Poisonous Snake, Corpse Found at Bottom of Gorge,’ ‘Bystander Killed in Trolley Strike,’  _ and perhaps most alarming,  _ ‘Serial Murderer Caught, 32 Victims Laid to Rest’  _ were amongst the stack of articles.

Castiel thumbed through a few articles until he reached some of the most recent articles. “Each of these eight articles has a letter at the top.” He pulled out the articles in question, holding them out so that the letters faced everyone else but himself. “V-I-V-I-E-N-N-E” he spelled. “I don't know who did this or why, but it is clear that they were trying to tell me where to find her next.”

The Winchesters and the archangel crowded closer to Cas’ articles. In each of them, there were words and phrases circled and underlined in what looked like red colored pencil. They didn’t have time to look at more than just a couple of the circled words before Cas neatly folded the articles and tucked them back into his coat.

“I say that our next course of action should be to let her heal until she wakes up.” Cas pointedly looked at Gabriel, as if to insure that he understood that he shouldn’t wake her up prematurely.

“You don’t find this all a little sketchy?” Dean asked.

Cas simply tilted his head in response.

“So no one can zero in on her location, but couldn’t whoever put the articles in your pocket have tracked us back to here? Watched us find her and bring her here?”

“Nothing followed me here, I can assure you of that.” The angel’s reassuring stare turned almost imperceptibly cold as he asked, “Unless you have a better suggestion for where to keep her?”

A pregnant silence filled the room as Dean shifted uncomfortably. It was true that the bunker was probably the safest place she could stay, but he didn’t like that he was harboring a long lost archangel; it just felt too risky. What would be the alternative if she didn’t stay at the bunker, though? Cas stashes her somewhere and hopes no one else comes across her? No. The bunker at least held some guarantee of safety. The wardings would protect her, but if something were to get through, the two hunters and the two holy beings would do their damndest to protect the bunker and all that was in it, including the girl.

Dean’s hard stare gave way as he sighed. “No, she can stay.”

“Well then,” Gabriel clapped, “I guess that settles it!”


End file.
